The Politics of Character Education

We would all be better served by recognizing that the current so-called
character education movement essentially represents an ideological
and political movement rather than a debate about curricular and
instructional matters. My basic criticisms of this approach, which are
elaborated in this chapter, can be briefly stated as deploring the naïveté
or disingenuousness of the discourse and of the inadequacies of its
political and social assumptions. I will try to show how this movement,
far from being innovative and reforming, represents instead a longstanding
tradition of using schools as agents of social stability., political
stasis, and cultural preservation. I hope that this analysis will shed light on the more general issues of moral education and the moral nature of
education.

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David PurpelUniversity of North Carolina at GreensboroE-mail AuthorDAVID E. PURPEL is a Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Curriculum Foundations, School of Education, University of North Carolina at Greensboro.